Oh, a second thought looking back at this - have you tried some of the smaller 135s? I like the OM Zuiko 135/3.5 and it's quite small; and while the Minolta MD-III 135/3.5 doesn't grab me, others like it.
I feel like the Oly lens provides a bit of a cinematic - or maybe just more dramatic - look with the flare. I like it!It's sad when you start finding holes in an old favorite lens.
The OM Zuiko 24/2.8 has been a long-time favorite of mine. I've loved how it performs outdoors, with great color/contrast and good sharpness. It has some vignetting on FF, but not enough to be a problem for me; in many cases I think it enhances the look.
But recently I've done a lot of indoor shooting with it, often in dim light, and I've been disappointed in the results. In particular, I'm seeing a lot of uncontrolled flare and light blooming with interior spotlights:
Here's what another favorite of mine, the MD 35-70/3.5 Macro, looked like in comparison:
Sigma fp, MD 35-70/3.5
I'll second that take - there are a handful of companies churning out ridiculously expensive filters (all the "mist" filters, diffusion filters, etc) to achieve similar results and videographers are their main target demographic.I feel like the Oly lens provides a bit of a cinematic - or maybe just more dramatic - look with the flare. I like it!It's sad when you start finding holes in an old favorite lens.
The OM Zuiko 24/2.8 has been a long-time favorite of mine. I've loved how it performs outdoors, with great color/contrast and good sharpness. It has some vignetting on FF, but not enough to be a problem for me; in many cases I think it enhances the look.
But recently I've done a lot of indoor shooting with it, often in dim light, and I've been disappointed in the results. In particular, I'm seeing a lot of uncontrolled flare and light blooming with interior spotlights:
Here's what another favorite of mine, the MD 35-70/3.5 Macro, looked like in comparison:
Sigma fp, MD 35-70/3.5
Aww I thought the Katydid would give me a pass!The stereo depth looks fine to me especially in the (eek!) flower shot.I'm going to jump on the cross-eyed stereo train and post a couple shots from a revisited project of mine - a stereo pair of tiny lenses on a single sensor. The lenses are only just over 22mm apart, so the stereo effect is not that strong, but it still works surprisingly well. It's fun and challenging to shoot with. I finally got around to trying video but I didn't get anything really worthwhile... this time! That's going to require a lot more practice.
First up are a couple of tight crops:
Katydid on a freeway daisy
A fence lizard in his element - even though the right eye has slightly worse image quality, and even though this scene is mostly lacking any depth, I see some real 3D-pop in stereo ;-)
I needed to get closer to this guy but he was too skittish.
Thankfully a neighborhood cat was more willing - here's what it looks like while you're composing shots, which has its complications:
Here's a crop:
And here's a tighter one:
One may notice that the two samples of this optic render a little differently - the right eye (left side of the images) has all yellow/amber-reflecting coatings for a slightly cooler transmission and shows signs of stressed/tilted elements in tests, while the left eye has a mix of magenta/blue/purple-reflecting coatings that look like they may be doing a better job.
True! It's very paper-cut-out-diorama-like out there with these dual lens setups. I have to wonder what the ideal separation would be and how it depends on the focal length (or equivalent focal length) of the lenses used - when you're out shooting sequentials, how far apart would you say your shots are? Maybe a test shoot and a poll on the results is on the horizon.
Agreed! I hope to capture some more interesting subjects soon, hopefully some that won't get scared off. I wish I could've been sitting in the Alps under the moonlight with a gentle breeze blowing to record... and take in the scenery (lovely shots, BSWA).The beautiful thing with a two-lens setup is that you can shoot moving objects. The single lens, sequential method I, and many folk on here use, is pants for anything with movement.
Even flowers, if it is windy0
www.joneshendershot.com
youtube.com
Fantastic results! If I recall correctly, you're doing multi-shot stitches, yes? Those Vivitar 135s have always been sleepers, but wow, they really have no business being this good!Out photographing with a friend and he kindly sat for a quick portrait. Vivitar 135mm 2.8.
Vivitar 135mm 2.8 @f/4
Very nice results!
Katydid on a freeway daisy
Thank you. Yes, 9 frames stitched. Approcximately 50mm equivalent.Fantastic results! If I recall correctly, you're doing multi-shot stitches, yes? Those Vivitar 135s have always been sleepers, but wow, they really have no business being this good!Out photographing with a friend and he kindly sat for a quick portrait. Vivitar 135mm 2.8.
Vivitar 135mm 2.8 @f/4
www.joneshendershot.com
youtube.com
I can see the argument, but it's emphatically not what I'm looking for here. ^^;;
Not sure if it's the lens itself getting worse, or just using it more in situations where it would never work well.
Ah! Well, tried removing it here, so let's see how it works.
I agree with you 100%. The pictures are very gentle, soft but not in a sense of non-sharp, they are sharp like seen by a human eye I think. I really like what the French lenses in general deliver, I think this is the quality, not “scientifically sharp” (??) - perhaps a wrong way to generalize but I don’t have any and examples I saw through the years online may have been from similar manufacturers or period (light on coatings).All of these are older shots, but I've recently revisited them and processed a couple more of them (decided that a majority of them were best SOOC however, so I didn't do anything besides resizing):
I've honestly been very impressed by the look of this one. No idea what it is though. It's specs are certainly not that imrpessive and it's very old. But I feel like something is very pleasing about the look.
Good looking shots! I don't have any hands-on experience with the 85 mm Projar. There are lots of different versions so it's possible that there is some 4 element Petzval type, but Mark lists pretty much all of the (non S-) Projars as 3/3 designs:I posted some pictures with this lens before https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/68071161. Somehow it made its way to my bag when I got to the same place I posted from at the link above. I am still confused whether it’s a 4 elements Petzval as noted here https://u42.co/Lens-Design/Rollei-Projar-85mm-f2.8-Info/Rollei-Projar-85-f2.8.html since Bosun mentioned before that most likely it’s a very simple triplet. It’s a bit less predictable than triplets I used. I have not yet found the sweet spot for it in terms of application. It does not shine for closeups yet it has a surprising somewhat unexpected bokeh, does well for portraits and is reasonably sharp at long distance.
I ended up trying it with an aperture inserted before an adapter and it only vignettes badly when it is significantly closed. It sharpens up nicely at close distance at about f4-f5.6. Some of the shots with the lilies are closed down but it darkened fast and started raining so I turned up the ISO and hurried up so I can’t remember where I closed it down some. if you see vignette, it’s with an aperture installed.
Same shot in b&w looks quite proper. Perhaps missing some grain
It was not infinity distanced when with aperture and I had a few challenges framing with lilies forming a few densely populated spots on the front yard
All of the Projars (plain vanilla, "P" and "V") I have disassembled were triplets, admittedly they were all of the plastic-bodied type with Kodak carousel threads. It may be that the metal-bodied, faster (f2.4-5) types have a different design, but I have never had one.
Nice! It's so much fun shooting stereo images. Everything is just that much more interesting (and lifelike, if you can see it).I'm going to jump on the cross-eyed stereo train and post a couple shots from a revisited project of mine - a stereo pair of tiny lenses on a single sensor. The lenses are only just over 22mm apart, so the stereo effect is not that strong, but it still works surprisingly well. It's fun and challenging to shoot with. I finally got around to trying video but I didn't get anything really worthwhile... this time! That's going to require a lot more practice.
First up are a couple of tight crops:
Katydid on a freeway daisy
A fence lizard in his element - even though the right eye has slightly worse image quality, and even though this scene is mostly lacking any depth, I see some real 3D-pop in stereo ;-)
I needed to get closer to this guy but he was too skittish.
Thankfully a neighborhood cat was more willing - here's what it looks like while you're composing shots, which has its complications:
Here's a crop:
And here's a tighter one:
One may notice that the two samples of this optic render a little differently - the right eye (left side of the images) has all yellow/amber-reflecting coatings for a slightly cooler transmission and shows signs of stressed/tilted elements in tests, while the left eye has a mix of magenta/blue/purple-reflecting coatings that look like they may be doing a better job.
Dear all - sorry for the doubt and not looking at reflections before posting. It is a triplet. It’s just probably the most capricious one from the triplets I’ve used, quite a bit less predictable.
